Harry Potter and the March of the Sentinels (Earth-62442, Part 1)
by BackslashEcho
Summary: Harry has never been what you'd call normal, and he generally expects the unexpected to happen all the time when he's concerned. But what's a guy to think when, barely an hour after he saves his cousin from Dementors, the two of them are attacked by Sentinels? Luckily, the X-Men arrive in time to pull them to safety. But what will the Order of the Phoenix say? [Pairings undecided].
1. First Contact

The mid-July day was sweltering, the drought inescapable, and a heavy, oppressive silence lay over Privet Drive. The only person who remained outdoors in the heat was a skinny, fifteen-year-old boy currently lounging as comfortably as he could in a flowerbed outside number Four. He had short black hair and round spectacles, and looked a little gaunt, as though he had recently hit a growth spurt and had not yet filled out properly. His clothes were torn, baggy, and faded, and rather made him stand out amidst the generally well-dressed inhabitants of the suburb of Little Whinging.

On the whole, Harry was rather proud of his hiding place, uncomfortable though he was, lying on the dusty dirt, with his arms visibly crisscrossed with dozens of scratches from the rosebush he had brushed past to get here… It was due to his location that he would be able to safely overhear the TV news without his aunt and uncle snarling at him. Any other boy might, perhaps, have been congratulated for taking an interest in current events, but as Harry's mere presence was a bugbear to the Dursleys, actively having to see him only ruined everyone's day.

Harry watched Mrs Figg, a mad old former babysitter, amble slowly past as a commercial jingle played over the TV's speakers. Finally, the opening notes of the music that heralded the eight o'clock news reached Harry's ears just as the sun began to disappear behind number Seven across the street, and Harry's stomach clenched. Perhaps tonight—after a month of waiting—would be the night…

"For our first story this evening, numbers of demonstrators outside Westminster Hall are growing, as a group calling for mutant equality continues their petition to the Houses of Parliament."

"Give the freaks a nice sit-in with the constable for disrupting Parliamentary business, I would," snarled Uncle Vernon over the end of the newsreader's sentence. "Right to petition belongs to normal, decent people!"

Outside the window, Harry sighed. If anything that Voldemort was behind had happened, it would surely have been the first item on the news; death and destruction were more important than demonstrations to Parliament.

Still, Harry thought the mutants made an interesting contrast to the wizarding world—really, the public reaction to the recent rise in mutant activity was about the same as the feared response to the breaking of the Statute of Secrecy. The only difference being that the mutant population was scattered, and so lacked a hidden world to support them.

Harry didn't have much of an opinion either way about mutants. He couldn't exactly blame anyone for having a strange power they didn't understand, or feeling that a strange destiny had been forced on them, now could he? Harry figured that, despite whatever prejudices people seemed to have against mutants, they weren't that different from wizards, overall.

He could almost hear Hermione's voice in his head — _Honestly, what does it matter if they have some special powers? So do we; any wizard can fly, using a broomstick, or conjure water from thin air! Why should it seem odd to us if a mutant can do something similar? _

Belatedly, Harry tuned back in to the news broadcast: "—and finally, Bungy the budgie has found a novel way of keeping cool this summer. Bungy, who lives at the Five Feathers in Barnsley, has learned to water ski! Mary Dorkins went to find out more.

Harry rolled his eyes. If they had reached water-skiing parakeets, there would be nothing else worth hearing. He prepared to crawl out from under the window, when suddenly he heard a loud, echoing crack that broke the sleepy silence of the suburb like a gunshot.

A cat streaked out from under a parked car and vanished around the corner. Harry leapt to his feet and drew a narrow wooden wand from the waistband of his jeans, as if he were unsheathing a sword. Unfortunately, he was still under the windowsill, and the top of his head crashed into the open window before he could fully straighten up.

Blinking his streaming eyes rapidly, Harry tried to focus on the street to spot the source of the crack, staggering drunkenly out of the flowerbed. Seeing nothing, Harry stuffed his wand hastily back into his jeans and stomped down the street away from number four, not caring about Uncle Vernon's bellowed demands that he return, or his dire warnings that Harry had better not be back later than Dudley.

Harry was sure the cracking noise had been made by someone Apparating or Disapparating. Every few steps he glanced back over his shoulder. Someone magical had been near him as he lay among Aunt Petunia's dying begonias, he was sure of it. Why hadn't they spoken to him, why hadn't they made contact, why were they hiding now?

Every day this summer, as Harry had measured the four solid weeks he had been trapped at Privet Drive, had been the same: the tension as he searched for a discarded paper or snuck around to hear the news, the expectation, the temporary relief, and then mounting tension again…and always, growing more insistent all the time, the question of why nothing had happened yet. Voldemort had returned! Why was he laying low?

As far as Harry knew, Voldemort much preferred a shadowy but direct approach, as the last wizarding war had been fraught with Death Eater attacks on wizards and muggles alike, with killings highlighted by the Dark Mark, and the Death Eaters and Voldemort always slipping away, uncaught. But there had been nothing of the sort all summer, and Harry had likewise heard no news of their own side, the people opposing Voldemort. In short, Harry had been completely cut off from the wizarding world for a full month, and he was sick of it.

Hearing raucous voices approaching, Harry paused. Then, recognizing them, he slipped into the shadow of a nearby alleyway, that connected Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk. It was a shortcut to and from a nearby park where Harry often went during the day to get away from number four, and consequently was frequented by Dudley returning home from a night out with his gang. He heard Dudley call goodnight to his friends at the other end of the alley, and footsteps as Dudley began to walk down the darkened track between the tall privacy fences on his way home. As he stood waiting, he barely noticed that his head no longer hurt at all.

Harry debated simply staying where he was, pressed against the wall. Dudley would most likely pass straight by him, as night was falling in earnest now, and Harry could avoid a confrontation and stay out as late as he wished. For a moment, childishly, he considered sticking out a foot to trip his cousin, but decided against it. While Harry was not remotely afraid of Dudley anymore, he knew that either action would most likely end with Uncle Vernon following up on his threat to lock Harry in the shed if he came home late again, let alone if he "assaulted" their precious Diddykins.

Then, when Dudley was less than ten feet away and Harry had finally decided to simply shadow him back home, it happened. Dudley gasped, a sudden bitter chill swept through the alley, and all light—from the streetlamps to the fat moon overhead—vanished.

"Wh-who's there?" Harry heard Dudley call. "What's going on? Is that you, Freak?"

"Dudley, shut up!" Harry snapped back in a whisper, turning on the spot slowly.

"I kn-knew it!" Dudley half-shouted, half-whimpered. "But you're not supposed to u-use it outside that freak school you go to! I've g-gone blind! What did you d-do to me?"

"I didn't do anything, you idiot!" Harry growled back. "There's something comi—" But before he could finish, Harry heard the sounds he had been dreading. The whisper of a cloak trailing on the ground, a slight disturbance in the air…and a long, slow, rattling breath like a drowned man's final gasp.

"Is that y-you?" said Dudley, his voice rising in panic. "C-cut it out with that D-Darth Vader shit. P-Please." Suddenly he was pleading. "Please. No. Don't tell Dad. Don't l-let them find out ab-bout meee…" Dudley trailed off in shudder.

"Dudley!" Harry hissed. "Where are you? Get over here so I can protect you! _Lumos_!" Harry's wand tip suddenly lit like a torch, casting a narrow beam of light across the mouth of the alleyway where he stood. He pointed it down the alley and repeated, "Dudley! Come here!"

The wandlight illuminated Dudley's back, but he didn't reply. He was backing slowly away from something further down the alley. As Dudley moved, apparently without realizing, toward him, Harry saw what his cousin was retreating from—two impossibly tall figures in hooded cloaks, from whose cowled depths the rattling breathing issued.

Dementors.

Harry was frozen in shock at seeing Dementors here—Here! In Little Whinging! The most thoroughly nonmagical place Harry knew of!

Dudley stumbled backwards and tripped. He threw up an arm to protect himself as the Dementors bore down upon him. Dudley screamed, and seemed to shrink somewhat, to diminish. At the same time, one of the Dementors leaned down, and knocked his hand aside. As it did so, however, its trailing cloak burst into flame. The burning dementor retreated, _receded_, and its fellow seemed to hesitate. That was all Harry needed.

Focusing on the happiest memory he could think of—not easy considering the summer he'd had so far—Harry pointed his wand at the Dementors and roared, "_Expecto patronum_!"

A silvery stag erupted from the lit tip of Harry's wand and charged the Dementors. The patronus passed right through Dudley, who had scrambled to his feet again, and lowered its antlered head. The silver prongs caught both Dementors in the chest, driving them back down the alley, where they swooped away in defeat, one of them still trailing smoke.

"W-wh-what happened?" Dudley said, stopping a few steps away from Harry as the streetlights behind them burst suddenly back into life, and the moon and stars seemed to suddenly reignite. He was still staring down the alleyway, apparently not even caring that he had his back to Harry with his wand out. "What w-was that?"

"Dementors," Harry breathed.

"I…I saw…like shadows. Darker than black. Reaching out for me."

Harry blinked in surprise. Muggles couldn't see Dementors; he was certain of it. It was one of the reasons Voldemort favored them so much. But Dudley was not describing Dementors correctly—they were dark, yes, in their black cloaks, but they did not appear incorporeal. As Harry knew well, Dementors were all too real.

"They…eat happiness," he summarized for his cousin. "I learned to fight them two years ago."

"I felt like I'd never be cheerful again. I h-heard voices. Mum and Dad saying…" Dudley trailed off, finally shambling around to face Harry, who quickly extinguished his wand and returned it to the waistband of his jeans.

Before he could think what else to say, Harry heard running footsteps at the far end of the alley. Not wishing to answer awkward questions, he seized Dudley's sleeve and pulled him across Wisteria Walk and back onto Privet Drive. Dudley shivered, which made Harry aware that he too was soaked in cold sweat.

"Have you got any chocolate on you?" he asked Dudley. His cousin stared at him stupidly for a moment, then shook his head.

"Not allowed…" he mumbled. Harry could have kicked himself—of course, this _would_ have to happen only after Dudley had been on a boxer's diet for a year.

"Well, you need it," Harry said firmly, taking in Dudley's pallor. "My teacher and the school nurse recommended it after dealing with Dementors. I've got some upstairs. Come on."

He led the unresisting Dudley around the house to the back door, and then upstairs to his bedroom. Dudley collapsed in Harry's desk chair. As Harry dropped to his hands and knees to crawl under his bed, he pondered that Dudley probably would have smashed the chair to pieces if he had done that just a year ago. Now, Dudley honestly looked a bit gaunt. Harry wrenched up the loose floorboard under the bed, and pulled out a wrapped bar of Honeydukes' Best Chocolate.

Crawling back out, he unwrapped it, broke off a piece for himself, and passed the rest to Dudley. Dudley took the candy and just stared at it, then at Harry. Harry held up the piece he had broken off and very deliberately took a bite. When Dudley still didn't move, Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, 'Big D', you've eaten more than that on a cheat day before. Go on, eat it. It'll help," he finished, thinking fondly of Professor Lupin as he echoed the man's words.

The faint smile fell off his face when he remembered that Lupin was leaving him as much in the dark as Ron, Hermione, Sirius, and everyone else. The good news was that Harry's sudden scowl apparently frightened Dudley into eating the chocolate. He took a large but hesitant bite, then moaned as Honeydukes' Best melted in his mouth. Dudley devoured the rest of the bar quickly, then got slowly to his feet, his eyes still fixed on Harry.

"You…saved my life," he said quietly.

"Not really," said Harry, a little awkwardly. "It was your soul the dementor would have taken…that's not remotely comforting, is it?"

Dudley, whose eyes were wide, shook his head, looking pale again. Sliding back to the floor, Harry pulled out another bar of chocolate before pounding the loose floorboard back into place. He got to his feet, dusted himself off, and tossed the second bar to Dudley.

"Eat that too," he advised. "And be careful, out there. They were probably after me, but…" Harry trailed off, realizing what was likely to happen now. He had used magic outside of school. There was probably a letter from the Ministry on its way to him, right now. In fact, given the Ministry's attitude toward him at the moment, there might well be Ministry officials on their way to the house to expel him at that very moment…

Turning his back on Dudley, he opened the window so that any owls arriving could get into the house without tapping at the glass of one of the windows downstairs and upsetting his Aunt and Uncle. Then, he began throwing his belongings pell-mell into his school trunk, which stood open at the foot of his bed.

"What're you doing?"

Harry paused in the act of flinging _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ across the room. He had completely dismissed Dudley, and hadn't realized the other boy was still in the room.

"As Uncle Vernon likes to remind me," Harry answered slowly, crossing the room to instead stack the book inside the trunk, "Wizards are not allowed to use magic outside of school before we come of age. It's a law—The Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. As this would be considered my second offense…" Harry snorted—his 'first' offense had been due to a hover charm cast by the house-elf Dobby—and placed _Achievements in Charming_ into his trunks as well. "I'm probably going to get into trouble with the Ministry of Magic. Again."

"What will they do?"

"I don't plan to find out, frankly," said Harry, forcing the lid of his trunk shut. Fortunately, Hedwig was away, so Harry was able to pack her cage into his trunk along with everything else…though it made for a tight fit.

Before he could say anything else, however, two owls swooped through the open window. One was a small screech owl, which bore a letter from the Ministry of Magic. Harry took the letter from the owl, noted the return address in the Improper Use of Magic Office, and promptly stuffed it into his pocket. He knew what it would say and did not much feel like facing it. The second owl, a handsome barn owl, which bore a very short scroll from Mr. Weasley, warning Harry to neither leave the house nor surrender his wand.

Harry frowned. How was he supposed to refuse to surrender his wand if Ministry officials came calling. He'd have to use magic to resist them, which could easily turn into duelling—if he did that, he'd be lucky to escape arrest, much less expulsion. But, perhaps if they already thought he was gone…

Harry opened his trunk again, and dug through it until he found the soft silkiness of his father's invisibility cloak. This he draped on the edge of the bed before sitting down on the trunk to reread Mr. Weasley's hasty note. A small scuffing noise then alerted him that Dudley was _still_ in the room.

"I've been instructed not to run," Harry supplied, in answer to his cousin's raised eyebrow. He was surprised—he would have figured the sight of just one owl would be enough to send Dudley scrambling for the safety of his room. Although, given what he had already faced tonight, perhaps Dudley just didn't have it in him to be scared by post birds anymore. "By my best friend's father, who works for the Ministry in a different department."

"What's going to happen now, then?" Dudley asked, carefully eating the second chocolate bar. There was something else that had changed—a year ago half the bar would have been smeared over Dudley's cheeks instead of in his mouth.

"I don't know, Dudley," Harry sighed. He pressed his palms to his forehead. Dudley scuffed his feet again when Harry looked back up at him, apparently marshaling his thoughts or gathering his courage for what he was about to say next.

"So…you must have seen—"

But his words were drowned out by a rumbling impact that shook the whole house. Harry heard Uncle Vernon's muffled swearing from downstairs, and the pictures in the hallway falling to the floor, glass shattering. He leapt to his feet and dashed to the window again. Outside in the street stood…a giant robot? It stood in the shape of a man nearly twenty feet tall, and seemed to be made of enormous plates of red and purple metal. It looked to Harry like something out of one of Dudley's video games. It turned slowly on the spot until its glowing red eyes faced Harry's window.

"Targets acquired," the machine rumbled in a dead, metallic voice. "Surrender and come quietly." The robot's arm then suddenly extended straight toward Harry, who dove away from the window and behind the bed.

"What the f—" Dudley shouted, as Aunt Petunia screamed from downstairs.

"Dudley, run!" Harry yelled, bounding to his feet and whipping the invisibility cloak around himself. He pushed Dudley ahead of him out of the room and down the stairs, then roared "Get out the back door!" at the elder Dursleys, both of whom were standing, frozen, in the sitting room, staring out through Aunt Petunia's net curtains at the robot's monstrous purple feet. Dudley rushed forward to grab their hands, and the entire ceiling started to collapse inward.

Harry drew his wand at once. "_Wingardium leviosa_!" The falling debris, which might have crushed all three of the Dursleys, suddenly flew upwards to shatter against the robot's face. It staggered back a step, and the Dursleys were finally spurred into action. Before they could so much as cross the room, though, there was a tremendous BOOM that cut through the air before a plane came shooting out of the distance. It landed directly on Privet Drive, and half a dozen people piled out of the hatch.

"New targets acquired," rumbled the robot. "Unidentified mutants: stand down and surrender, you are under arrest."

"Not gonna happen, bub!" roared one of the newcomers.

"Targets confirmed hostile." A loud beep came from the robot's chest. "Backup requested."

The Dursleys, who had almost reached Harry, had stopped again, staring back toward the street and the people who had emerged from the jet. One man, apparently the leader, wore a dark blue outfit with gold straps and a similarly gold-colored visor, set with what looked like a reddish crystal. He glanced at his fellows and began snapping orders.

"Wolverine, stay with the Blackbird! Dazzler, drop the Sentinel! Nightcrawler, retrieve the targets! Jubilee, cover him!"

Before any of the others could respond, all of them had to dive out of the way of a narrow beam of energy which fired from the sentinel's hand, tearing up the road. What might once have been a fountain of water from the pipes below the street emerged as a mere trickle, evidence of the ongoing drought.

The leader's hand flew to the side of his visor, which suddenly emitted a red blast like the sentinel's, knocking the robot back a step. A young woman, not much older than Harry and wearing a short brown jacket, stepped forward to join him. She clapped her hands together to form a finger-gun, and fired a pinkish beam of her own at the machine. Staggered, the sentinel came crashing to the ground in the middle of the cul de sac at the end of Privet Drive, fortunately not crushing any of the houses there.

"Do not be afraid," said a woman's voice in Harry's head. A gasp from his left told him that Dudley had heard it, too. "We are here to help you both. The sentinel is here for you; we must take you away from here so that your family will be safe. I will explain the situation to them; please take the hand that is offered you."

Before Harry or Dudley could begin to wonder what that meant, there was a loud pop and a burst of foul-smelling smoke behind them. Harry whirled around and found…something extending a hand. The person before him had blue fur all over his body, pointed ears, yellow eyes with no apparent pupils, and a narrow, whiplike tail. However, true to what the voice had said, he was offering each of them a three-fingered hand to grab. Still, neither boy immediately took his hand, until a girl's voice said, "Well, hurry up, won't ya?"

Another girl about their age—in a banana-yellow trenchcoat of all things—leaned out from behind the blue person and gestured at them impatiently. "C'mon, while the sentinel's down and before its buddies arrive!"

Harry slid his wand away and hesitantly took the offered hand, looking at Dudley. Dudley, however, was looking over his shoulder at his parents. Uncle Vernon was purple-faced in rage, and Aunt Petunia looked like she was about to faint.

"MY OWN SON!" Uncle Vernon bellowed, bringing a shaking finger up to point at Harry. "YOU DID THIS, DIDN'T YOU? WASN'T ENOUGH TO BE A FREAK YOURSELF, YOU HAD TO GO AND TURN DUDLEY INTO ONE TOO? GET OUT OF MY SIGHT, THE BOTH OF YOU, AND NEVER COME BACK!"

Dudley paled, and reached behind him blindly for the blue person's other hand. The moment he did so, the girl grabbed the strange boy's shoulders and said, "Let's go, Kurt!"

In the blink of an eye, Harry found himself immersed in another choking cloud of smoke. As it cleared away, he saw that he was now standing at the foot of the ramp leading up to the jet.

"Go on, now, into ze Blackbird," the blue-furred boy ushered them in a faint but distinct German accent.

"We're clear," shouted the leader. "Everyone fall back!"

Harry and Dudley were pushed into seats by a short man with wild hair. "Buckle up, kiddos, because we're blastin' the hell outta Kansas," he rasped.

The leader took the pilot's seat, while the brown-jacketed girl sat in the copilot's chair. On Harry's other side from Dudley sat the blue-furred boy who had retrieved them, while the girl in the yellow jacket and a graceful red-haired woman took the seats facing them. The wild-haired man raised the ramp, before leaning against the wall next to the final seat, which was already occupied by what appeared to be a blue-furred yeti.

Harry was afforded one last glance at Privet Drive, the entire front of number four more or less torn off, before the jet rose and all he could see was the night sky. Then, all at once, everyone was flung to the limits of their safety harnesses.

"Course locked in, autopilot engaged," called the man in the pilot's seat, apparently to the passengers at large. "Destination: home. ETA 78 minutes."

Finally, the acceleration eased, and everyone was able to sit up properly again. Harry looked around. Dudley simply looked terrified. The short man who had shoved them into their seats looked bored. Everyone else was looking at the two of them eagerly.

"Er…" said Harry awkwardly. He supposed he should be used to feeling eyes on him, given his fame at school, but he never liked it. "Thanks, I guess."

"You _guess_?" said the girl in the yellow jacket, a little skeptically. "Like you had that under control?"

Harry shrugged. "I could have dealt with it," he said. "Not easily though. So maybe you're right, and I should just say, thanks."

"No problem," she grinned in response, pushing her pink sunglasses up to her forehead to reveal dark, almond-shaped eyes.

"So, er, where are we going?" Harry asked after a moment, since Dudley didn't seem about to break the silence, and everyone else was still staring at him.

"Somewhere safe," said the pilot, rotating his chair so that he could face Harry and Dudley. His voice was suited to command, Harry thought. It was also, he suddenly realized, American—in fact, most of their voices had been. This raised a rather pertinent question in Harry's mind.

"Where, though?" Harry insisted. Privet Drive was only perhaps an hour from London by broom, and though he wasn't entirely sure where The Burrow actually stood, he, Ron, Fred and George had reached it in less than three hours while flying Mr. Weasley's old car.

"Headquarters," said the girl in the short jacket, likewise spinning her chair to face them. She blew a bright pink bubble with her gum, and popped it loudly.

"Knock it off, Punk Rock," growled the wild-looking man from the back of the plane. 'Punk Rock' smirked; evidently it was an ongoing byplay.

Finally, the red-haired woman across from them spoke up, this time in her real voice instead of in their heads. "We're returning to Westchester to meet with the Professor."

"In Cheshire?" Dudley asked. Harry blinked, having had no idea Dudley knew anything about geography.

The woman smiled. "No, dear, in New York." Both boys' eyes widened, and they spoke at the same time.

"I can't leave England!" Harry blurted out.

"You can't get there in seventy-eight minutes!" Dudley cried.

"One at a time," the leader said. He pointed at Dudley, "First, we're currently flying at three-and-a-half times the speed of sound, so factoring for wind resistance it will actually be just over an hour and twenty minutes. Second," his finger now tracked over to Harry, "Is there a particular reason you _don't_ want to get away from that sentinel, no matter how you planned to 'deal with it'?"

Dudley looked dumbstruck. Harry frowned. "There's…things…I've got to do," Harry explained. "I've got to stay. If you could drop me off in Devon, I can take care of myself until school starts. I've got to go back to school" he added lamely.

Harry could not see the man's eyebrows behind his suit, mask, and visor, but he was sure they rose; the man's disbelief was almost palpable.

"How very…persuasive," the leader said finally. "Regardless, you are both being evacuated for your own safety. We came as quickly as we could to retrieve you both, before you could be captured by the likes of the sentinels or whatever the local chapter of the Friends of Humanity calls itself. Before you could be hurt or exploited or killed simply for having special abilities. Like us."

'Like us?' Were they all wizards? Was this how American wizards dressed and acted? Harry, busy raising his own eyebrows, did not see Dudley's eyes widen in shock. "Not like it would be the first time," Harry grumbled.

"I'm very sorry to hear that," said the red-haired woman. "Rest assured, you will be safe with us, and nobody will hurt you like that again."

"Fat chance," Harry snorted. "We're at war."

"War?" questioned the leader.

Harry was getting more confused by the minute. "I'm Harry Potter," he clarified.

"Nice to meet you, Harry," the woman replied. "My name is Jean Grey." There was not a flicker of recognition from anyone in the plane.

"Do you…not know who I am?" Harry asked slowly.

"Should we?" asked the girl in the yellow jacket.

Harry's mind whirled. These people couldn't be wizards; even the foreign wizards at the Quidditch World Cup last year had recognized Harry. He had grown to realize that he would never escape his fame, even before Voldemort became fixated on him once more. But none of these strangers showed any sign that they had heard his name before. Harry nervously flattened his bangs and shook his head.

The leader and Jean looked at each other for a moment. Plainly, they did not believe Harry's current denial.

"Who exactly are you?" Harry hastened to ask, eager to draw their attention onto another subject.

The other two continued their wordless exchange for a few more seconds, before the leader gave a tiny sigh and straightened up. "My name is Scott Summers; if you'd like, you can call me Cyclops," he said, tapping his visor gently. "My copilot is Alison Blaire—"

"Stage name Dazzler," she interrupted, popping another bubble and grinning at the growl from behind them.

"Jubilee," said the girl in yellow, giving a peace sign and winking at Harry.

"Kurt Wagner," chimed in the blue-furred boy she had been with. "In ze circus, zey called me Nightcrawler."

"Dr. Henry McCoy," said the yeti-like creature in a pleasant voice. "Callsign Beast, for obvious reasons."

"And finally, the grumpy one by the door is Logan, codename Wolverine," Jean finished, since Logan did not seem eager to speak up. Instead, he snorted and pulled a large cigar from the pocket of his leather jacket. He bit off the end and clamped it in his teeth, but did not light it, for which Harry was grateful.

"Now then," Jean finished. "If you are Harry, then this must be your cousin, Dudley, yes?"

"Y-yeah," said Harry. He glanced at his cousin himself. "Er, you all right, Dudley?"

Dudley, still looking pinched compared to normal, now appeared pale and shaken. "Y-you're all…" he stammered, looking around the jet. "L-like…m-me?"

"Like you both, yes," said Jean comfortingly.

Dudley looked at Harry. "He's not like us," he told Jean. "He's…different."

"Er," said Harry, more baffled than ever. "Do you know them, Dudley?"

Dudley, for his part, turned to Harry and whispered quickly, "It's a secret, what you are, right? About…you know…what happened in the alley? And your school?"

Harry nodded slowly, not sure where Dudley was going with this.

"They must have got you by accident because of that," said Dudley, his voice a little steadier at last, though still sounding shocked. "I bet it's easy to mistake."

Harry, still lost and a bit surprised that Dudley has figured something out before him, asked, "Mistake for what?"

"For…For a mutant."

Harry blinked in surprise again, his mind whirling as fast as Cyclops had said the jet was flying. Dudley was a mutant? That would explain Uncle Vernon's parting words. So the strange abilities that all these people had exhibited were mutant powers? Glancing at the two passengers with blue fur, he supposed that made sense. And they thought that _he_ was a mutant? Dudley probably had a point, they must have mistaken his magic for a mutant ability, but as magic was a secret, he couldn't very well demonstrate it to correct them.

And with every passing moment, they were getting further away from Britain, his friends, and Hogwarts.

Harry nodded to Dudley, then turned to Jean and asked, "When can I go back?"

"Well," she said, sounding surprised. "Once your power is under control, I suppose would be the soonest. Usually people stay on with us, though. It's easier for our kind, at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters."

Harry pressed on, "And that's a school for…" he glanced at Dudley. "For mutants?"

"That is correct," Jean said. "Professor Xavier is very gifted himself, and he has made it his mission to extend any help he can to young mutants, especially those who are just coming into their powers, who often find themselves neglected or even abused."

"You look the part more than he does, frankly," Dazzler put in. Harry raised an eyebrow. Dazzler popped her gum, ignored the grumbled threats from Wolverine's corner, and clarified, "No offense, but you're pretty skinny. Your cousin looks like he's got some square meals in him, at least."

Neither Harry's nor Dudley's slight wince went unnoticed by the others.

"Anyway," said Harry, trying to get control of the conversation again. "I'm not going to sit here and pretend I'm normal, but I'm not a mutant."

_"…Each takes his way; some would to pleasures go,_  
_Some to the wars and thunder_  
_Of alarms._

_'As good go anywhere,' they say,_  
_'As to benumb_  
_Both knees and heart, in crying night and day…_  
_But no hearing."_

Beast's mellifluous voice seemed to fill the plane as he recited the poem. He smiled a fanged smile at them and clarified, "George Herbert, somewhat paraphrased."

Harry tilted his head, thinking over the poem. "You…think I'm in denial?" he asked finally.

The fanged smile widened, but Harry found it friendly rather than threatening. Rather than an affirmation, though, Beast simply added, "_We know what we are, but know not what we may be._ Shakespeare, of course."

Harry sighed. "I know exactly what I am; it's just not what you seem to think."

"What are ya, then?" Jubilee asked.

Harry sighed. "I can't tell you." Again, Harry could practically feel the disbelief around him. "It's not that I'm trying to be all mysterious or that I'm not grateful to you all for helping us back there, but it's against the law for me to tell you."

"Against what law?" Cyclops asked. "Whose law?"

"Well…_our_ law," said Harry awkwardly, hanging his head. "It's called the International Statute of Secrecy. The full name…would actually violate the law itself to tell you. Sorry."

They were all staring at him now, even Dudley. Perhaps he was surprised that wizards really had laws? That sounded like something he might have absorbed from Uncle Vernon, despite the evidence to the contrary.

"He's telling the truth, Scott," said Jean suddenly. Harry looked at Cyclops, but the man was instead looking toward the back of the plane.

Following his gaze, Harry found himself looking into the scowling face of Wolverine. After a moment, the feral-looking man shook his head and growled, "No change in his scent or his heartrate. He's bein' honest, Slim. Or he thinks he is."

"We won't press you, Harry," Jean told him, drawing his attention back onto her. "Neither you nor we are in any sort of danger right now, so we'll let you discuss this with the Professor. If he agrees, then we won't bring up…your secret…again. Still, according to our scans, you register as a mutant despite…whatever your secret may be. Cerebro has hit some distortions before, but has never been wrong yet when it comes to detecting young mutants as strong as you two." She gave them both a gentle smile. "The combination of energy and brainwaves that mutants give off is very distinctive."

Harry, finding his mouth open, shut it and slowly shook his head. If there was a chance, even a chance, that they were right…well, he had to know. And if they were wrong, there was bound to be somewhere in America where he could buy some floo powder or make contact with the wizarding world again; they would be able to help him get home.

And what about Dudley? Harry glanced sideways at his cousin. If Dudley was a mutant, it was probably for the best that he get away from Vernon and Petunia, at least for a little while.

Not wanting to talk anymore, Harry leaned back and shut his eyes, giving one last smile to Jubilee, what was still grinning at him. He heard her strike up a conversation with Wolverine, but given his poor sleep habits the summer so far, Harry was unsurprised to find himself drifting into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

**A/N:** Crossovers are just too much fun.

I don't know if the rest of the Marvelverse is going to figure into this story, since I'm mostly going to be focusing on the X-Men. Note that despite the "all media types" tag, I am going to be showing a lot of my own interpretations of these characters. In the X-Men's case, this is heavily influenced by the (cheesy but awesome) oldschool cartoon, but will not be shackled by that show's canon. I will probably be playing fast and loose with characters' ages, but then again, it's X-Men, so you might not even notice.

Finally, as noted above, pairings are not yet finalized, as I want to see how the characters play off each other first.

* * *

**A/N 2:** Edited slightly to reduce the frankly ridiculous number of people I brought out to deal with one lousy sentinel. Honestly, seven is still a bit much, but there is are at least story-reasons for there to be that many.

* * *

**A/N 3: **16 March 2015: Edited again to contain less quoted text.


	2. Hypotheses

Meanwhile, at the hidden headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, chaos reigned.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE HE IS?" bellowed a red-faced Molly Weasley.

Normally, Sirius might have roared at her to keep it down, especially since her screams of rage had woken the snoozing picture of his mother, Walburga Black, and sent her into one of her shrieking fits, weeping about blood traitors and mudbloods and other such desecrations to the name of wizard. In this instance, however, he was quite on Molly's side: Harry was missing, and that was simply unacceptable.

The target of Molly's ire, an unkempt-looking wizard with droopy eyes like a basset hound's, shrank away from her. He looked like would have liked nothing more than to disapparate, but Dumbledore himself had cast the jinx which prevented Mundungus Fletcher from doing so. Considering the usual use of that jinx was to stop criminals from fleeing before they could be arrested and their wands confiscated, it was saying something that Dung was permitted to keep his.

For Mundungus had been the one on duty when Harry disappeared—Mundungus the one who had disapparated from outside number four Privet Drive shortly after the opening broadcast of the eight o'clock news, who had been away when Harry ran into trouble and needed help. Sirius himself was panicking: the simple fact was that Harry's breach of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy had been the Patronus Charm. There were only two creatures in the world that merited the use of a Patronus, and one of them couldn't exist in the climate of England. That left only one possibility in Sirius' mind.

His godson had been attacked by Dementors while Mundungus was supposed to be guarding him, and had been forced to defend himself. Harry was now facing potential expulsion from school, possibly even arrest if the whisperings around the Ministry were to be believed. The idea should have been ludicrous—arresting a child for defending himself against the darkest creatures to ever exist? But then, this was the same Ministry that had seen Sirius himself imprisoned for twelve years without trial. Harry, at least, had Dumbledore sticking up for him as he had not been there to stick up for Sirius, and while Sirius would never forget that Dumbledore had let him rot for more than a decade, he was desperately glad that Harry, at least, would get a hearing, and would have Dumbledore on his side.

The problem, of course, was that Harry was missing. The owl that had been sent by the Improper Use of Magic Office to inform Harry of his hearing on 12 August had returned to the Ministry with its letter undelivered. The Ministry tried to use this fact to demonstrate that Harry had fled, but once again Dumbledore intervened, pointing out that even wizards who were on the run, such as Sirius himself had been until recently, could be found by post owls. Not that the Ministry knew that Sirius had settled down, of course. The fact remained, however, that post owls could even locate someone hidden by a Fidelius Charm, despite the sender being unaware of the intended recipient's location.

Since the letter could not be delivered, Dumbledore had argued before an emergency session of the Wizengamot, the law according due process to those accused of criminal activities had not been fulfilled. He had, at least for the moment, successfully convinced enough members of the court to overrule those calling for Harry to be tried _in absentia_. That he had managed this even after the Ministry had demoted him from his position as the Wizengamot's Chief Warlock was nothing short of miraculous.

Still, all in all, Sirius supposed that he could admit he would have been satisfied if the Dementor attack and Ministry hearing was all that he had to worry about—he would not be pleased, of course, and he would certainly be worried, but Harry knew how to take care of himself, and Dumbledore was convinced that the Ministry couldn't possibly expel Harry in such a matter of self-defense. Sirius had to agree: Harry was accused of breaking the Statute of Secrecy by using magic in a muggle-inhabited area, and in the presence of a muggle, but the muggle in question was known beyond a doubt to be his cousin, Dudley Dursley, who was fully aware of the existence of magic, and there had been no other witnesses, no memories to modify, nothing to cover up.

As the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery also made provisions for self-defense—and casting a Patronus at a Dementor would certainly be considered the last defense of one's life in any sane court—Harry's hearing should be a formality. It wouldn't be, since the Ministry was looking for any excuse to discredit him wherever possible, but even so Sirius would have been optimistic.

But it wasn't just that. On top of all of those problems was the _slightly_ more pressing matter that Harry had vanished, apparently without a trace. His Aunt and Uncle's car had been located at a small motel a few hours away, but nobody knew what they were apparently running from, and the Ministry couldn't be arsed to actually ask them any questions. Dudley Dursley was as completely gone as Harry was.

Harry's school trunk had been found in the wreckage of Privet Drive, along with the suitcase Dudley apparently took with him to his own boarding school, which the latter had never unpacked for the summer. Harry's trunk, despite appearing to have been packed very hastily, contained almost all of his possessions, including his owl's empty cage. Harry's prized broomstick had also been found, suggesting that Harry had _not_ gone on the run.

Remus had searched the area, and could find no trace of Harry or anything else except a scent trail that went suddenly cold in the middle of the broken house, and an odd burnt smell in the street. There was no scent of blood or any of the usual signs of a battle. More perplexing still, while Harry's vanishing trail might have been attributed to his somehow taking to the sky despite leaving his broomstick behind, his trail had been closely accompanied by Dudley's, which had disappeared at the same spot. The Knight Bus had been called, but neither the conductors nor any of the passengers remembered seeing anyone get on, and the employees insisted that the Bus had not been to the neighborhood. Remus was now tracking down the elder Dursleys, since the Ministry was unwilling to.

The only evidence that Harry had not somehow been kidnapped was the lack of any magical trace of foul play. Dumbledore had examined the area himself, and had found no curses cast and none of the disturbances left by the passage of a Portkey. The only spell he could detect was a hover charm that he thought might have been Harry's. Strong though Harry might be for his age, his singular hover charm was definitely _not_ capable of removing the front third of the house, and smashing up most of the street, no matter how creatively he applied it. Dumbledore's final note was that the only thing seemingly missing from Harry's trunk was was his Invisibility Cloak.

Together, this all suggested that wherever Harry and Dudley were, they were most likely together, and had gone willingly, without putting up a fight or any spells being cast. The only apparent possible method of travel was Apparition, but who would both Harry, who had been told to stay put until he was retrieved, and his notoriously magic-phobic cousin, willingly leave with? And how had whoever it was gotten away without leaving any scent behind themselves?

Dumbledore was apparently questioning the handful of people he knew who had the magical strength and focus necessary for Side-Along Apparition, cross-referencing with who might have the magical knowledge and wherewithal to hide their scent, but nobody at headquarters had heard from him in hours. Sirius, confined there in a bad mood, had been 'guarding' Mundungus when Molly arrived to have a go at the man.

_Wherever you are, Harry…please be safe…_

* * *

Harry jolted awake when someone gently flicked the end of his nose. Jerking his head back and blinking rapidly, he saw Dazzler smirking down at him before a blown bubble momentarily obscured her mouth.

"You sure are a heavy sleeper," she commented. "C'mon, Professor X wants to talk to you."

Harry tried to stand up, but had forgotten the seatbelt. After a moment of fiddling, it released, and he stood to stretch. Following Dazzler down the Blackbird's ramp and out of the plane hangar, he was surprised to see the sun hanging just above the horizon. Following his gaze, she popped another bubble and grinned. "Welcome to the States, where we drive on the other side of the road and nobody has a fancy accent like yours—well, except the Professor. We're also about five hours behind you, so you might be a little jet-lagged for a while."

Dazzler led Harry into a large estate that he thought looked like a place where someone like Malfoy might live. Not that Harry was poor, exactly, but the Potters, while pureblood, were certainly not semi-noble old money like the Malfoys or the Blacks. More of a _nouveau riche_ for the wizarding world. Once he was inside the manor, however, Harry had to review his assessment. Posh though the large house undoubtedly was, there was a certain warmth to the surroundings that Harry simply couldn't see the Malfoys appreciating.

They met Dudley exiting a mahogany door on the ground floor in what Harry thought was the West wing of the house. He smiled uncertainly at Harry, who took in Dudley's tense posture and the small silver key in his large hand.

"Will you be staying, then?" Harry asked, curious.

Dudley flinched, but answered in a low voice. "You heard what Da—what Vernon said. He doesn't want to see either of us again."

Harry shrugged. "I've been hearing that for years," he reminded Dudley.

"I'm sorry," Dudley mumbled. "You still…still saved my life earlier." He shifted the key to his left hand and held out his right. Harry, still a little surprised, took it and shook. Harry watched Dudley round the corner out of sight, back toward the central stairway, then turned to find Dazzler watching him keenly.

"What?" he asked, self-conscious.

"Didn't you two…I dunno, live together?" she said pointedly.

"We don't get along," Harry replied. Then he glanced in the direction Dudley had disappeared and clarified. "Or we didn't. I guess we're making a fresh start."

Seeming to take him at his word, she gestured him through the door Dudley had exited. "Professor Xavier's waiting for you."

Entering, Harry found himself reminded strongly of walking into the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts, though there were few superficial similarities. No whirring and puffing silver instruments stood on spindle-legged tables here, no moving portraits adorned the walls, and no phoenix perched beside the door. The bookshelves lining the walls were familiar, though, as was the large window with a view of the grounds—albeit from the ground floor rather than a tower—and the desk standing in the center of the room. The man behind the desk also called Professor Dumbledore strongly to Harry's mind, though like the rooms, the two men could not have looked more different.

Where Dumbledore was tall, with long silver hair and beard and prominent wrinkles, Professor Xavier looked younger, like a man simply out of his prime. He was bald and clean-shaven, and wore a neat suit rather than Dumbledore's characteristically eccentric robes. Harry also couldn't hazard a guess at his height, for this man was in a wheelchair, with a comfortable-looking blanket covering his legs. When his eyes met Harry's, however, the twinkle there reminded Harry very strongly of his Headmaster, as did this man's sense of energy, which seemed to suit a much younger man.

"Welcome, Mister Potter," the bald man said. His voice, though quiet, carried easily across the room. "Won't you please have a seat?" He had a distinct—if oddly flattened by his time in America—Oxford accent, with notes of what Harry thought might be Yorkshire here and there. All in all, the effect was very pleasant, and went a long way to helping Harry feel at ease.

Harry sat as he was asked, noticing as he did so that they were not alone: Cyclops stood behind the Professor's shoulder, one hand resting on the back of the wheelchair. He had changed into casual clothes, a flannel shirt over jeans, and was wearing what looked like red sunglasses instead of his visor from earlier. Off to the side, the man called Wolverine leaned against the bookcase with his arms folded, his unlit cigar still clamped in his teeth as he gazed pensively out the window.

"Thank you, Miss Blaire, you may go," the Professor added to Dazzler.

Harry waved, and she grinned at him. "Come say 'bye' before you leave," she said to Harry. She nodded to the Professor, and popped her gum loudly as she shut the door behind her, making Wolverine growl about making her run extra laps. Harry heard her laugh as the door closed, and found himself smiling too.

"Thank you as well, for joining us, Mister Potter. My name is Charles Xavier," Professor Xavier continued, with an encouraging smile of his own. "And allow me to be, if not the first, then the most personally pleased to welcome you to the Xavier Academy for Gifted Youngsters, a boarding school established for the sake of young mutants like yourself.

"I understand," he continued, and here he glanced at Cyclops, "That there was some excitement involved with your pickup?"

Harry nodded, unsure what to say to that. When it was clear he wasn't going to speak, Xavier continued.

"I feel I should make abundantly clear, Harry—if I may be so presumptuous as to use your given name—that what occurred at your home was not your fault. It is not typical, and we are still looking into the possible causes."

Harry shrugged at this. While the appearance of the giant robot…the sentinel, he remembered…was surprising, it had signalled the end of Harry's exile to Privet Drive. The house was wrecked, but everyone was alive, so Harry honestly saw little to be upset about. Professor Xavier's eyebrows contracted slightly, but he continued as if untroubled.

"Given this rather unusual circumstance, not to mention the remoteness of your home compared to the school, I would like to formally extend you an invitation to stay here at the Institute. Your cousin, Mister Dursley, implied that your guardians would not object."

Harry snorted before he could stop himself. The Dursleys would not give a damn where Harry was, so long as it wasn't with them. They were most pleased that he was at Hogwarts ten months out of the year, and could only be more pleased by the fact that there was now an ocean separating them.

Noticing the looks of surprise on Xavier's and Cyclops' faces, and that even Wolverine had raised an eyebrow, Harry finally spoke. "He's right, they won't care."

Now Xavier gave a real frown. "Harry, as Miss Grey likely mentioned on the plane, it is not unusual for young mutants to face prejudice or even abuse. However, that is not something you will have to fear here at the institute. While your sudden appearance here may raise some questions, I have some friends working in the British Consulate here in New York. They are already working with the Department of State to grant you a student visa, so there should be no legal issue with you remaining here. You are assuredly not the first, nor will you be the last, foreign youth to find himself here."

Taking a moment to marshal his thoughts, Harry replied, "Thank you, Professor Xavier, sir. But, what about my school? Term starts on 1 September, and my teachers will be concerned…" he trailed off.

"Ah, yes, the young Mister Dursley implied that you were very attached to your school. We would not dream of preventing you from returning in due course, but at this moment it may be dangerous for you to do so."

Thinking of what he had faced at Hogwarts so far in his four years there, Harry could only shrug again. "It usually is, sir, but it's home."

"That, Harry, is how I hope you will come to think of this Institute," Xavier said. "As a home. I confess I don't know how your education has progressed, but here, there should be no danger to you that cannot be easily dealt with. There is the occasional flaring of tempers, and the potential for a loss of what self-control the average teenager possesses…" Here he gave a gentle smile. "But our staff is perfectly capable of handling any such incident, even with the inclusion of mutant abilities, and I am proud to say that in the life of this Academy, there have been no serious injuries sustained by any of her students."

Well, that was certainly a point over Hogwarts, where he found himself in the Hospital Wing at least once every year, Harry thought wryly. Still, his school and especially the Headmaster were not likely to take his disappearance lying down. He wondered how long it would take for them to discover him, and what they would do. Would they simply whisk him away back to Hogwarts?

"Er, Professor," said Harry. "Are you…quite sure there hasn't been some mistake, like we discussed on the plane?" He glanced at Cyclops, unsure if he had told Xavier about their earlier conversation.

Evidently he had not, for Xavier turned to him and asked, "Scott?"

Cyclops drew himself up like a soldier and summarized, "Mister Dursley seemed aware that he was a mutant when we picked him up, and it appears that his parents have a certain intolerance for anything 'abnormal'. He and Mister Potter had a short discussion after we explained why we came, and Mister Dursley implied that we had, perhaps, picked up Mister Potter by accident, indicating that we in some way mistook him for a mutant. Mister Potter himself also seemed to expect to be recognized, by name if not on sight, and was surprised when he was not."

"The big one asked him if 'what he was' and his school were a secret," Wolverine put in. Harry's head whipped around. His and Dudley's conversation had been held in whispers, he was certain that nobody could have overheard them. Wolverine simply smirked. "Kid, I could hear yer heartbeat over the jet engine, hearin' yer voices wasn't a problem even if I couldn't read yer lips."

"Mister Potter…" Xavier said slowly, "Was this school of yours…by any chance in the far North of Scotland?"

Harry stared back at Professor Xavier. He knew. He had to know, or he wouldn't have known to ask that question. Was he a wizard? But why would a wizard open a school for mutants? For that matter, shouldn't a British wizard of Xavier's apparent age know perfectly well who Harry was? There were too many unanswered questions, and Harry's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Still, he could see no reason not to answer the question honestly. "I believe so, sir. I've never been certain exactly where. We take the train North from London every year to get there, you see."

Harry saw something odd flicker across the corner of his vision. Looking around, he saw that Wolverine had pushed himself upright, and was scowling at him. "He's hidin' somethin', Chuck," the wild-looking man growled.

"Thank you, Logan, that will do," Xavier said quellingly. "Go and fetch Miss Rasputin or Miss Sefton, if you would be so kind."

As Wolverine left, Xavier's gaze returned to Harry. "Everyone is entitled to their secrets at my school, Harry, as long as those secrets do not entail a danger to the other students. Can you assure me that this is the case?"

Harry nodded firmly before he heard the door close. He had no intention of using magic here, and knew that even if he did, he would never willingly hurt someone. There was the theoretical possibility that the students could be in danger if Voldemort or the Death Eaters attacked looking for Harry, but as Xavier himself had pointed out… "As long as no one knows I'm here, sir, there can't be any trouble."

Xavier's piercing look that reminded Harry so much of Dumbledore swept through him once more, but then Xavier bowed his head. "That will do to be going on with. Until contact is made, at the very least, can we impose on you to stay here as our guest, Mister Potter? I am still under the impression that we are not mistaken about you, but I would like to confirm my suspicions before we create any further plans. Are you agreeable?"

Harry nodded again. It wasn't as if he had anywhere else to go, so he may as well stay here for a few days until he could figure out how to get back in contact with the wizarding world, whether in America or in Britain. Unless, of course, he could convince Xavier to have him returned to Britain, in which case…

Harry's thoughts were interrupted as the door opened again, signalling Wolverine's return. He was followed by two younger girls with blonde hair, who Harry estimated to be perhaps eleven or twelve. They both took seats to Harry's left, looking nervous.

"Thank you both for coming, Miss Sefton, Dama Rasputina," he said calmly, slipping into a coarse-sounding accent for the last two words. "You are not in any trouble; I simply wondered if you might recognize this young man, who I'm told attends a very selective boarding school in the North of Britain."

The two girls cast glances at Harry, and the nearer did a double take. The girl farther away, whom Xavier had addressed in another language, simply shook her head. The one closer to Harry was a different story, however. She took in his untidy hair, round glasses, and green eyes, before Harry saw her eyes perform the familiar flick upward to his forehead. She peered at him, apparently trying to see through his hair, and then clapped her hands to her mouth.

"Oh my god, you're Harry Potter!" she gasped.

Harry sighed. By the girl's accent, she was American, but it appeared that not even the ocean could separate him completely from his fame. The second girl now looked mildly interested, but was at least politely looking him in the eye. The one who had recognized him seemed to be squealing quietly behind her hands.

Cyclops, looking from her to Harry, said, "I take it that's the reaction you were expecting when you introduced yourself on the jet?" Harry shrugged and nodded.

"So what's that about?" said Wolverine. "You some kinda teen heartthrob, kid? Guess there's no accounting for taste…" Harry's guffaws cut off the end of Logan's sentence. Him? A heartthrob?

"Would you care to enlighten us, Miss Sefton?" Xavier asked, though he looked amused.

The girl, who was blushing at both Logan's comments and—apparently—Harry's proximity, slowly lowered her hands and repeated in a strangled voice, "He's _Harry Potter_," as if that explained everything. Which he supposed it did…if you happened to be magical. Did that make this Miss Sefton a witch?

Cyclops opened his mouth, but Xavier merely raised a hand, silencing his protégé. He then nodded encouragingly at the young girl.

"He's…he's like the most famous person!" the blonde continued. "He's done all sorts of amazing things; he's fought evil and saved his school and rescued his friends who were kidnapped and turned to stone and fought dragons and mermen and sphinxes and giant spiders, and do you really have a flying car?" She addressed the last breathless question to Harry, still blushing furiously.

"Er, no," said Harry. "I, er, borrowed that. I think my godfather has a flying motorbike, though."

"Careful, kid, she'll swoon," Logan snarked. The girl shot him a dirty look, then turned back to Xavier.

"Professor, is he going here? Is he a mutant too?" Once again, she turned to address Harry halfway through. "Did something happen that you can't go back to Hogwarts? Are you gonna learn magic here with us instead?"

Harry froze, not due to her naming of Hogwarts, since the name wouldn't mean anything to a muggle, but because of her casual mention of magic. While he certainly didn't know anything about the laws of magical America, he was absolutely certain that the Statute of Secrecy still applied—it was an International standard!

Harry made his eyes widen and said, "Magic? What are you talking about?" He knew it was unconvincing, but didn't know what else he supposed to do. The girl looked hugely confused.

"But…but you're Harry Potter…"

"Yeah, midget, we've established that," Wolverine put in. The girl ignored him.

"So why are you…" then her eyes widened in understanding. She looked back at Xavier and said hurriedly, "If you remember, sir, witches and wizards are bound by law to keep magic a secret from nonmagical people, and I don't think Harry realized that you know about it."

Harry looked hurriedly at Xavier, who smiled. "Yes, indeed, though since I am not familiar with your apparent fame, I also did not wish to divulge that secret. I hope you can forgive our misunderstanding, Mister Potter."

"So he's a magic-user?" Cyclops inquired. Both Xavier and both blonde girls nodded. "And that's why you thought we had made a mistake in picking you up?" he added to Harry.

"Right," said Harry. "So then…Professor Xavier, do you know Professor Dumbledore?"

"Only by reputation," Xavier replied. "I had discussed with Lord Braddock the possibility that we would have to snatch away some British mutants, and he agreed to help smooth things over with both the Queen's government and Merlyn's. I will inform him that Mister Potter is here, and I am certain he will get the message to the right people.

"That being said, I would still like Mister Potter to remain if possible. Magician or not, Cerebro detected emissions of mutant energy from you as well as from your cousin, and I do not think it possible that your cousin alone could have put out enough of a signature to catch the attention of a sentinel. Two strong young mutants in close proximity, however, especially if you were recently in some peril…" He trailed off at the look on Harry's face, and gestured for Harry to explain.

"Dudley and I were attacked by creatures called Dementors," Harry said. "Earlier, or yesterday, or whenever it would have been with the time difference." The girl named Sefton gasped again, and even the other girl looked shocked. Harry ignored them. "I ran them off using magic, and I think Dudley set one on fire. That…must have been his mutant power?"

"And you are certain that you yourself did not feel any different? Nothing has changed about you or your perception of the world?"

"I don't think so, sir."

Xavier was silent for a moment, then said, "Very well, Harry. I think further questions can wait until later. The sun has gone down, which means for you it must feel very late indeed. Miss Sefton, if you would show Mister Potter to the guest suite across the hall, and to the kitchen?"

The girl bounded to her feet, nodding eagerly, and Harry suppressed a sigh. She reminded him a little of how Ginny used to be, or Colin Creevey: overwhelmed by the reputation of the Boy-Who-Lived, and unable to see how uncomfortable Harry was with his fame. Still, those two had learned, and Harry thought of both of them as friends—hopefully it would be the same with this girl.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him away, still blushing and ignoring Wolverine's chuckles. She showed him to a door stained in warm chestnut tones down the hallway on the opposite side, and pushed it open to reveal a spacious bedroom with a four-poster bed and attached bathroom.

"Here's where you'll stay for now," she said. "It's way nicer than the dorms upstairs, but you're like a guest of honor, so that's no surprise! My name's Amanda Sefton, by the way. Are you hungry?"

Harry, who had eaten nothing that day but a cheese sandwich at lunchtime and a mouthful of chocolate after his run-in with the Dementors, nodded.

"C'mon, the kitchen is this way!" She again grabbed his hand and led him back down the way he had come with Dazzler, across the entrance parlor and into the East wing, chattering all the while. "The Professor's study and our classrooms are over here in the West wing. That's the central staircase that leads up to the dorms. Over there is the rec room where people hang out if they're not in the commons upstairs or if they want Wolverine or Gambit to hustle them at pool. We have a big dining room here even though usually it's not that full. The kitchen's this way; sounds like there's some people in there. Not that weird, since a whole bunch of people just got back from picking you up."

Harry's head whirled as he tried to keep everything she told him straight, his feet following her automatically toward the kitchen, and wondering what was going on elsewhere.

* * *

Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Ginny all tugged at the long, flesh-coloured strings they had been holding to their ears. The twins' prototype Extendable Ears coiled themselves neatly, having quickly retreated from the door downstairs where the emergency meeting of the Order of the Phoenix was breaking up. Fortunately, in their haste to discuss the matter of Harry, the Order had forgotten to place their usual Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door.

The five of them returned to Ron's guest bedroom and arranged themselves on the two beds to discuss what they had overheard while eavesdropping, and Fred quickly dealt a hand of Exploding Snap, so that they could pretend to be absorbed in the game if they were checked on.

"So," George said in a low voice. "Even Dumbledore still doesn't know where Harry is, and Lupin can't get the Dursleys to talk to him."

"At least Snape says You-Know-Who is just as confused as we are," said Ginny.

"And if the Death Eaters knew anything, he'd tell Dumbledore right away," Hermione agreed.

"We hope," grumbled Ron. Ginny scowled and flicked one of her cards at him. He tried to catch it, but it ignited, sending the rest of the cards in his hand up in flames as well, and leaving him to suck on his burnt fingers.

"Don't say that," said Hermione.

"Still, George's point stands," said Fred. "I'm worried. Didn't you hear Moody's report? He and Kingsley finally got out there, and Moody says that the damage to the house and the street is textbook for a giant attack."

"There's no sign of approach or escape, though, and even You-Know-Who can't apparate a giant," George countered. "Dumbledore says there's no evidence of any spells being cast except Harry's Hover Charm."

"He must have flown away," said Ron for the umpteenth time. "There's no other way for him to have just up and disappeared with no trace."

"Without his broom, Ronniekins?" Fred asked skeptically, pointing to the corner of the room, where Harry's Firebolt stood next to his fully-packed trunk. Both had been retrieved during Dumbledore's last inspection of Privet Drive.

"He could have had another one!" Ron insisted. "Firebolts are all limited, so they're all registered. That one's definitely Harry's by the serial number, but he could have nicked one from the school broom shed or bought a cheap one to throw people off the scent when he flew away under the Cloak."

Harry's invisibility cloak had become public knowledge among the five of them when they started eavesdropping, and they clung to the fact that he had it because it meant he wouldn't be defenseless, wherever he was.

Ron's broomstick idea was nothing new, but it was the only viable possibility any of them could come up with, other than Sirius' mysterious-trusted-apparator hypothesis. Neither guess explained where Harry's cousin had gone or why, but nobody seemed very concerned about that except for Hermione, who was quite certain that Harry's hearing at the Ministry—assuming he was able to attend it—would include a charge of kidnapping a muggle. Not that the Ministry had ever cared before, she griped, but it would be quite within their current act.

She was surprised there hadn't been anything in the _Daily Prophet_, though she supposed the newspaper had not yet got to the point where they were willing to highlight the Ministry's own incompetence just to get a jab at Harry. Particularly when they were already doing so several time a week. Ugh.

Wherever Harry was, she hoped he wouldn't have to deal with as much negative press, at least.

* * *

"I don't like it," Wolverine growled as the door closed behind Illyana Rasputin, who had done her best to summarize Harry Potter's known adventures to date. "Caught in the lie or not, the kid tried to hide that he's bein' targeted by a madman. He's in the middle of a damn war, and he says with a straight face that he ain't gonna attract trouble? I know trouble, Chuck, and I c'n tell that kid's a magnet for it."

"All the more reason for us to offer him what help we can, Logan," Xavier replied. "Mister Potter is guilty of nothing more than trying to uphold his own society's laws. Given the worries that were dancing around his mind, concerning what seems to be a rather unjust government, I should think that the X-Men would be _entirely_ sympathetic."

Wolverine merely scoffed at this pointed reply, but Cyclops looked decidedly uncomfortable. "You're not suggesting we stand against this Ministry of Magic, are you, Professor? Noble as it is to help those in need, we already have a cause to champion, and nigh-insurmountable obstacles of our own."

"I intend nothing of the sort at this time," Xavier said firmly. "Harry is a guest here, and will be treated as such until he decides to leave us or to stay on a student. I am hopeful that he will choose the latter, as it will allow us to study his development more closely. You see, while his scans from Cerebro did indicate that he was able to access an outside energy source—that being his magical power—in addition to his own distinctive mutant energy signature, there were also further readings that I still do not understand…from both Mister Potter _and_ Mister Dursley."

"You were aware he was a magic-user all along, Professor?" Scott asked, surprised.

"I…suspected, yes," Xavier admitted. "I kept this to myself for several reasons. Primarily, my suspicions were mere guesswork. Beyond that…I have had no opportunity to scan for pure magic-users with Cerebro, which is obviously fine-tuned to seek out mutants. Our own handful of magic-users are themselves difficult to pinpoint with Cerebro, because high concentrations of magic appear to have a deleterious effect on electrical systems. Were it not for his proximity to Mister Dursley, I doubt we would have detected Mister Potter at all.

"Finally, I kept my silence about magic because I wished to see what Mister Potter's reaction would be, if gently pressed. I found him to be a shrewd young man, unfailingly polite and often wronged. He shows signs of a neglected, if not abusive past, but holds no grudges against the frankly anti-magical people who raised him—only a deep-seated wish to be free of them. He shows signs of both a talent for teaching and a liking for defending those around him, a willingness to work for what he perceives as the greater good, and a truly astounding courage that has led him to face all the dangers Miss Rasputina mentioned and more. Truly, if I was not certain his loyalty was placed elsewhere, I would recommend he be put in training as an X-Cadet based on his personality profile alone."

Cyclops sighed, staring at the door Potter had exited by and rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Should we test him secretly like the rest, Professor?"

"I think not, Scott," Xavier replied. "I believe that where this particular young man is concerned, we will get the best results simply by asking, rather than by trying to manipulate him. You can do so when he awakens tomorrow."

"I understand, sir," said Scott, drawing himself up once more. Even Logan nodded grudgingly. Then, his voice growing concerned, Scott added, "It's late, Professor…"

"Yes, indeed. Goodnight, Scott, Logan."

"G'night Chuck," Wolverine said, crossing to the window, opening it, and vaulting out into the night to light his cigar at last.

Rolling his eyes behind his ruby quartz glasses, Cyclops shut the window behind his teammate. "Good night, Professor."

* * *

Harry entered the kitchen behind Amanda, and found Dazzler and Jean Grey sitting with another girl around Harry's age.

"Hiya Alison, Betsy, Ms Grey!" chirped the excitable blonde. "Is there anything good left to eat?"

"Just some TV dinners," said Dazzler, gesturing at the plastic tray in front of her. "So no, nothing good left. Seriously, I don't know why we buy these things."

"Wolverine buys them," Jean replied. "He doesn't exactly have to worry about his cholesterol or sodium intake, you see?" All the women chuckled at this. Harry, who didn't get the joke, just smiled awkwardly.

When Amanda turned to him, he said, in answer to her unasked question, "I'm not picky. I can even make something if it's not any trouble."

"No trouble at all, Harry," Jean assured him. "We've got some eggs and bread at least, since our weekly grocery run is, unfortunately, tomorrow. On which note, I think I will say goodnight."

As they all said goodbye, Amanda showed Harry where to find a frying pan, and he was soon frying up what Mrs Weasley called 'Eggy In A Basket'. As he worked, he studiously tried to ignore the three young women at the table who were blatantly gossiping about him. Given his past at Hogwarts, this wasn't exactly a new experience for Harry, though the fact that the almost-whispers seemed generally positive was a plus.

"He's so modest!" giggled Amanda. "And his accent is even cuter than I'd imagined—cuter than Betsy's for sure."

"An' what's that mean, luv?" asked the girl Harry hadn't met, Betsy. Her accent was upper-crust London, Harry thought. Not that different from some of the Dursley's neighbors on Privet Drive. "Should your boyfriend be jealous of him, or me?" She tossed her long, curly, black hair and smirked at Amanda, who was blushing again.

Dazzler snorted. She had thrown her midriff jacket over the back of the chair she was sitting on, leaving her in a high-necked halter top made of the same heavy leather and other dark grey material that the others had worn on the jet. It had a sunburst design on the front, done in yellow, which was replicated on the thighs of her equally-dark combat pants. She also wore a black headband in her short, dark red hair. As he slid his food onto a plate he had found in a nearby cabinet, Harry reflected that the getup would probably make for poor stealth. But then, since she could apparently shoot pink energy blasts from her fingertips, perhaps she wasn't concerned about that.

As the three were plainly distracted by their chat, Harry bolted the food standing at the kitchen island, quickly cleaned the utensils he had dirtied, and quietly slipped out of the kitchen. Glancing back, he saw Dazzler tip him a wink over Amanda's shoulder. He grinned back at her, waved goodnight, and returned to the guest room he had been shown.

Closing the door behind him and sitting down on the bed, he contemplated what tomorrow would likely bring. If at all possible, he needed to find a way to make contact with Dumbledore. He would have to ask Amanda if she knew of any transoceanic magical communications. Or perhaps Professor Xavier would have an idea. Sighing, Harry got undressed and climbed into bed, grateful that his guest bed was a four-poster, which made him feel a little more at home. Slipping his wand under his pillow, and collapsing bonelessly on top of it, Harry fell asleep almost at once.

* * *

**A/N**: Yeah, I'm basically pulling Xavier from the movies and no one else. It's not that important, but my own conception of the X-Men is basically based around taking the good qualities from every depiction and blending them with my own understanding of the characters.

Xavier politely addresses Illyana as "Дама Распутина", which would mean something like "Lady Rasputin", accounting for the feminine version of her last name. At least, I think it would be polite: any russophones who want to correct me, feel free.

Fred and George do not and will not use "twin-speak" to finish each other's sentences because _they never __**ever**__ do that in canon._

I am also officially declaring this alternate reality to be Earth-62442.


	3. Mutatis Mutandis

Harry awoke to a genteel knock on the door. He opened his eyes slowly, unmoving, staring at the unfamiliar pillowcase slightly stained with drool. His fingers closed on his wand as the knock came again.

"Are you awake, Harry?" came a woman's voice.

It was the voice—in particular, the soft American accent—that finally jarred Harry's memory. Jean Grey, who he had met yesterday, along with the rest of her oddly-dressed fellow mutants. As everything came rushing back, Harry sat up.

"Er, just a moment," he called back.

He'd been forced to leave Privet Drive without his school trunk, so he had no spare clothes with him, unless you counted his Invisibility Cloak. He picked up what he had been wearing yesterday, rubbing his eyes and wondering how badly he had overslept, because he felt more tired than normal.

He glanced at the clock as he came back out of the bathroom, and saw that it was only ten o'clock in the morning. He shrugged, put the odd feeling down to the time difference, and opened the door to a smiling Jean. She wore simple, casual clothes, and a headband to hold back her long, auburn hair.

"Good morning," he said, belatedly. She returned the greeting and tilted her head gracefully to indicate he should follow her.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked as she led him back to the kitchen.

"Better than I expected," he admitted. "I don't usually sleep this late."

Jean patted his shoulder. "Well, no harm done. The Professor's been in touch with Betsy's brother; so we should be in touch with your regular teachers soon enough."

Harry wondered idly what the girl he'd met briefly had to do with his situation, but just nodded. Until he got back in contact with the Order of the Phoenix, he thought it best to simply keep his head down. They entered the dining room, and were immediately greeted by Amanda, seated near the door.

"Good morning, Harry!"

Logan, exiting the kitchen holding an enormous stack of pancakes, what looked to be an entire rasher of American bacon, and not one but _three_ of the TV dinners, snorted and smirked at Harry. Amanda blushed even brighter than the day before. Harry, busy raising an eyebrow at the stacked trays he was carrying, pretended not to notice.

"Whatcha lookin' at, kid?" Logan grunted. "F'yer hungry, get yer own." He brushed past Harry and Jean, and made his way across the hall.

Harry glanced at Jean, but she just rolled her eyes. "Just ignore him. He'll warm up eventually."

Harry didn't expect he would stay long enough to get to that point, but didn't feel like making a point of it. Instead, he shrugged. The grocery shopping trip Jean had mentioned the previous night had evidently happened, because Harry entered the kitchen to find a brown-haired boy who looked a little older than him serving the pancakes, and a second rasher of bacon, presumably for everyone else to split.

"Bobby, did Logan remember to pay for his half of the groceries?" Jean asked the boy, who had been intent on the stove and apparently hadn't noticed them enter.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, Miz Grey, he did," Bobby answered. "You here for food?" He began assembling a plate without waiting for an answer.

"No, but Harry is," Jean said, passing the plate to him.

"Hey, new blood?" said Bobby. "Welcome to the Institute, dude." He held up a fist, which Harry blinked at for a moment before realizing what he wanted. He shifted the plate to his other hand and extended his own fist, which Bobby bumped. "I'm Bobby Drake," the boy introduced himself readily.

"Harry Potter," said Harry, reminded of his simple introduction to Hermione on the Hogwarts Express in their first year. Her reaction had been disproportionate…but was actually fairly understated compared to what Harry had gotten used to over the years.

"Cool," Bobby replied as he turned back to the stove. "Lemme know how the pancakes turned out."

Harry decided that although he may not be very used to introducing himself to people who didn't already know him, he rather liked it. Amanda was already gone when he returned to the dining room, so Harry and Jean sat down across from Jubilee, who appeared to be sleeping on the table.

"So, that was Bobby. He's one of our most promising students," Jean told Harry. "Could stand to focus more on his studies, though," she added with a sigh.

Harry chuckled as Jean launched into the story of the Institute's founding, once Professor Xavier came back to his native America in the years after the Korean war. Harry had to take a mental step back when he realized that the war she referred to was older than the Wizarding War in which Harry's parents and loved ones had fought. The Korean War had been several years after World War 2, which itself had been fought at the same time as the next-most-recent Wizarding War on the Continent. That war had ended around the same time Professor Dumbledore won his famous duel with Grindelwald. Afterward, it seemed, Professor Xavier had spent years adventuring in the Near and Far East, then some time studying in the British Isles, before opening the Institute.

The motto of the Institute, Jean told him, was _Mutatis Mutandis_, meaning, "to change what need be changed". Harry, chuckling, replied that Hogwarts' motto was _Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus_.

"What does that mean?" Jubilee asked curiously, glancing up from the crook of her elbow.

"'Never tickle a sleeping dragon'," Harry translated. Both ladies blinked at him incredulously, and Harry shrugged. "You can't deny it's practical advice," he added. They both chuckled as Harry finished his breakfast.

"You can leave that, Harry," Jean said, as he made to clear up his plate. She raised her voice pointedly, "It's Jubilee's turn to do the dishes."

Jubilee groaned theatrically, but got up to begin gathering plates to clean. She had dispensed with her yellow coat, and like Jean was wearing ordinary clothes—jeans and a reddish-pink shirt adorned with a golden X. She grinned at Harry, who smiled back.

Jean paused, cocked her head as if listening to something, Then she rose, and passed Harry's plate to Jubilee before saying, "Harry, the Professor wanted to ask if you're comfortable helping him with a few things? They may help us get in contact with your usual guardians, and perhaps experience fewer…miscommunications of the type you thought we had made when we retrieved you."

Having nothing better to do, Harry shrugged. "Sure. We definitely need to get word to my friends that I'm okay. They're probably panicked by now. And if you turn out to be right about me being a—a mutant—then maybe you can help me."

Jean led him back to Professor Xavier's study, but it was empty. She crossed to the bookshelf that Logan had been leaning against last night, rested a hand against it, and closed her eyes for a moment. Harry heard a tiny _click_ and a low _beep_, and Jean turned back to him.

"Harry, I should make clear that our…operation to come and get you and your cousin is not a normal function of any branch of the U.S. government. Quite aside from our perfectly aboveboard existence as a school, this manor is also Professor Xavier's private estate, from which he operates a somewhat…extralegal organization for the benefit of both mutants and mankind, which we call the X-Men. Professor Xavier trusts you with this secret on the grounds that you showed admirable restraint in keeping your own secret."

Jean pulled at the side of the bookcase, which swung forward silently as though on hinges. Were he not used to secret passages at Hogwarts, Harry thought idly, he might have been more startled. Instead, Harry merely inclined his head, and followed Jean into what looked like a lift—a guess that was borne out when the floor began to judder. When the doors opened again, it was onto a sterile white-tiled hallway very distinct from the warm, simplified Edwardian design of the main house.

Jean led Harry to a perfectly round door—of metal or plastic, he couldn't tell—set into the left-hand wall of the corridor. Within, Professor Xavier waited with the blue-furred Beast.

"Ah, Mister Potter, excellent," said Xavier in his calm voice. "I am hoping you will be willing to assist Doctor McCoy here in some few experiments."

"What can I do, sir?" Harry asked curiously.

"We are particularly interested in how the access to magic is associated—or, as we may perhaps discover, how it is _not_—with the X-gene and the gestation of mutant abilities. You see, we hypothesize the two may be connected because, given the stories of your…exploits…as relayed to us by the enthusiastic Miss Sefton, it would not have been unusual for your mutant abilities to have manifested long before now, unless there was, if you follow, some reason why they would not have," said Beast, performing an effortless backflip and catching hold of a bar welded to the ceiling with his surprisingly dexterous feet.

After taking a moment to parse the labyrinthine sentence, Harry clarified, "You think that magic may be the reason my mutant powers have stayed hidden until now?"

"An admirably succinct and accurate summation," Beast said, with his usual fanged smile. "Normally, we find ourselves asking newly-awakened mutants—oftentimes younger even than yourself—if they have recently suffered some danger, trauma, or emotional upheaval. For your cousin, this creature encounter seems to have done the trick of unlocking a potential he had only guessed at. If Miss Sefton is to be believed, however—and it would be most uncharacteristic of her to lie—_you_ have encountered such distress with what seems to me to be rather alarming frequency."

Unable to argue with that assessment, Harry merely shrugged, and nodded.

"It is therefore within the realm of scientific possibility—and thus experimental inquiry—that there is a…magical explanation for why we have seen no recognizable mutant flux from you on our sensors until now."

"So what do we do?" Harry asked cautiously. Beast shuffled along the bar to a workstation, gesturing Harry to follow.

"Bloodwork, primarily," Beast replied, dropping lightly back to the floor. He picked up a small vial and some kind of plastic device that would presumably draw the blood. "Unless magic has a better method?" he asked, noting Harry's apprehension.

Harry shook his head. "It's against the law to use magic outside of school before you come of age. The Ministry sends you a warning, but you can be expelled and have your wand snapped."

"How very interesting," Beast mused, apparently to distract Harry as he took Harry's hand and readied the lance. "I presume there are provisions in this law for accidents or self-defense?"

"Supposedly," Harry scoffed.

"I'm curious what you mean by that, Harry," Xavier cut in.

Harry turned his head to face the Professor. "I was told on good authority that those provisions are written in the law," Harry explained, remembering some of Hermione's History notes. "But there is apparently a wide margin of error, because I received an official warning three years ago when a House Elf smashed a pudding in my Aunt and Uncle's house. Since the Elf wasn't supposed to be there, they registered magic use and assumed it was me."

"Most curious," Beast pronounced, drawing Harry's attention again as he realized that Beast was finished collecting blood. "As there is unlikely to be a computer controlling such a thing in your world, that would suggest some sort of bug or tracer placed upon you."

Harry shrugged, certain he did not know the answer. "I got a letter from the Improper Use of Magic Office last night, but I never got the chance to read it." He accepted a piece of gauze for his pricked finger. "I dropped it when the attack happened."

"Quite understandable," said Xavier. "Now, if Doctor McCoy is done with you for the moment—" he got an absent nod from Beast. "—then perhaps you would like to accompany me to meet our British contact, Lord Braddock?"

Harry shrugged again but moved to follow, wondering vaguely if this obviously-English Braddock was any relation to the Slytherin boy in his year, Malcolm Braddock. Harry didn't know Malcolm well, probably because the weedy boy wasn't one of the usual antagonists of Harry's Gryffindor friends.

Xavier turned his wheelchair, which glided smoothly back out into the hallway and down to the last door set in the same wall. They passed several doors on the other side of the corridor, and Harry noticed that the hall ended in another door, larger than the others. The door they entered, however, led them into a large conference room full of computers and other equipment.

Jean was inside, standing behind Scott, who was seated at a computer. On the screen was a blond-haired, blue-eyed young man, who seemed to be about Harry's age. He looked tall and fit, but would otherwise have been relatively unremarkable except for the patch over his left eye.

"Thanks for helping smooth things over, Brian," Jean was saying.

"I wish I could do more," the man onscreen replied. His accent was very refined—the sort of near-perfect RP Harry associated with his Hufflepuff acquaintance, Justin Finch-Fletchley. "Things have been…more tense…for a few weeks now, and nobody wants to talk to me about it. The ordinary wizards are not fans of mine, considering me something of a blasphemer. Still. What is it you say in America?" He grinned. "Money talks."

Scott looked around, and noticed Harry and Xavier. "Ah, the Professor just arrived," he told Brian, sliding his chair to the side so that the newcomers could approach.

"Good morning, Lord Braddock," said Xavier, rolling up to the screen. Harry followed, a step behind.

"Good afternoon, Professor Xavier," Brian shot back, chuckling at their time difference. "And is that the guest of honour with you?"

"Yes, indeed," Xavier agreed. "Lord Braddock, Harry Potter. Mister Potter, the young Lord Brian Braddock."

Not sure exactly how he was supposed to react, Harry nodded to Braddock.

"Too formal, Professor," Braddock laughed. "Mister Potter, I had planned to contact the Ministry this afternoon to let them know you are safe, but quite frankly, given what Scott and Jean have told me, I am beginning to think that it may be…not in your best interests," he finished carefully.

Harry found himself shrugging again. "The Ministry thinks I'm mad," he said plainly. "The Minister refuses to believe that Voldemort is back."

Braddock blinked, apparently at Harry's easy acceptance, but did not flinch or otherwise react to Voldemort's name.

"The so-called Lord Voldemort has returned?" Braddock repeated. "Well now… I daresay that explains quite a lot. If your Ministry will be unhelpful, should I instead inform Albus Dumbledore of your whereabouts?"

Harry scowled at the mention of Dumbledore—who had left him at Privet Drive, disconnected and undefended—but reluctantly nodded. Harry might not be well-pleased with the man, but he still held great influence in the magical community. He glanced at Professor Xavier. "Professor Dumbledore will probably insist I come back," Harry admitted. "But he'd also be able to tell my friends I'm okay," he added hurriedly. "So they don't worry."

"It would be my honour, Mister Potter," Braddock told him earnestly. "Do you think we could discuss the so-called Lord Voldemort at another time?"

Harry thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I suppose so. I'll just hope you believe me over the _Daily Prophet_."

"I am always more inclined to believe a person over a paper, Mister Potter. I shall look forward to that conversation. When you do return to England, perhaps we can meet for tea—" Braddock glanced to the side for a moment, then looked back and explained briefly, "Duty calls." He began to move out of shot, but then glanced back. "Mister Potter, before I go, I feel it may interest you to know that the Trace charm your Ministry uses to detect magical activity has an active range of only about 600 miles, and Professor Xavier's estate is not actively monitored by the U.S. Department of Magic. Now I really must dash. It has been a pleasure, Mister Potter; Professor, as ever."

"Likewise," said Xavier.

Harry nodded again, and the screen went blank. He liked Braddock, despite his formality, and was grateful that he was willing to avoid the Ministry. The tip about the Trace was interesting too. He turned to Professor Xavier. "Does that mean—"

"Yes, Harry," Xavier answered, before Harry could even pose the question. "My home is considered a 'magical dwelling', so magical activity here is not investigated—I imagine rather like your own school. So, if you will again promise that you will not endanger my students, I have no problem with you practicing and studying magic while you are staying here. I _would_ ask that you be wary of technology, however; we have found in the past that sophisticated electronics tend to react poorly to nearby magical activity. I have no doubt that Doctor McCoy has a dozen theories as to why this is so, which he will be only too happy to share with you. Come, while we await an answer from Lord Braddock, let us see if Henry is done with your bloodwork."

Harry followed Professor Xavier back out of what was apparently the War Room, only to meet Beast standing outside it.

"Samples are culturing," Beast said without preamble. "However, based on what I overheard, I would like to get an idea of Harry's capabilities with magic directly, Professor." He inclined his head at the door opposite them.

"If Harry consents," Xavier temporized, but Harry nodded. Being unable to use magic over the summer holiday was an endless source of annoyance. Xavier clarified, "What Doctor McCoy is suggesting, Harry, is for you to spend some time in our holographic training facility, which our X-Men have dubiously dubbed the Danger Room. Within the Danger Room, we are able to create false environments for training purposes."

Receiving another nod from Harry, Xavier followed Beast through the door into what looked like an observatory. Through a large window, Harry looked down on…a jungle? A stepped pyramid rose through a thick green canopy that obscured the ground.

Beast crossed to a control panel, and said over his shoulder, "The simulation is at a manageable level considering Wolverine is inside, Professor; he's training some of his protégés: Miss Blaire and Miss Pryde—and it appears Miss Lee is expected to join them shortly as well."

"Right-o!" said a cheerful voice behind them. Harry spun around, startled, to see Jubilee dressed again as she had been in Little Whinging. "So, did I hear right? You're coming in with us?"

Harry shrugged. "Apparently."

Jubilee grinned at him, settling her pink sunglasses over her eyes. "Then let's get this party started!"

She grabbed Harry's arm and dragged him over to a section of floor in the corner marked off by a yellow line, then hammered a button on the wall. The panel tipped downward sharply, and they both slid into the jungle. Jubilee skipped gracefully at the bottom and kept her feet, but Harry tumbled. Clambering upright, he had to run to keep up as Jubilee darted into the trees at once.

* * *

"Given this setup, and the lack of Danger Room hostiles, I'm guessing we're playing Keep-Away with Wolverine. Three on one is hard-mode for us, but I bet four on one will surprise him at first," Jubilee mused as Harry scrambled after her, drawing his wand. He didn't like the way the trees pressed in all around them. Between that and the vague ambient sounds, it was impossible to tell if they were about to stumble upon someone—or be suddenly found themselves.

"So what should I expect?" Harry said in a low voice as Jubilee finally slowed down.

"Kitty and Alison are out here somewhere, and so is Logan," she explained. "For us, it's kinda like Capture the Flag; there's some kinda relic or something—probably in that pyramid—that we're supposed to get and guard. Logan is probably in the jungle hunting us. Depending on the difficulty, he might have handicapped himself, like a clothespin on the nose or a blindfold." She shrugged. "He usually wins anyway, but it's about us getting better."

"Can we fight back?" Harry asked.

Jubilee tilted her head. "We _can_," she allowed, then tilted the other way. "But we'd probably lose unless we all attack at once and have the drop on him."

"Mutants usually just have one power, right?" Harry changed the subject.

"One or two related ones, usually; at least when they're our age." Jubilee agreed with a nod. "If you live to be as old as Logan, you might develop secondary mutations or get some other kind of enhancements, like his claws."

"Claws?" said Harry nervously.

"Oh yeah, he's got these metal claws that grow outta the backs of his hands," she said, realizing he wouldn't know, and indicating the indentations between her knuckles. "They're not a mutation, they were from some kinda procedure he went through in like the sixties, or something. He doesn't like to talk about it," she added, hurriedly. "So don't ask. My power…I call 'em fireworks. They're like…these little energy blasts?" She seemed uncertain how to describe them. "Usually they just make a bit of noise and a bright light, like a flash-bang, but I'm learning to put more power behind 'em so they can actually blast. Dazzler's power is to turn sound into light blasts, but her control is waaay better than mine. Shadowcat can phase through solid objects, but only for as long as she can hold her breath, coz she can't breathe while she's inside a wall or whatever, y'know?"

Harry felt his head spin a little, but boiled it down to the essential points as he began following Jubilee again, remembering that he had seen Dazzler's power when she blasted the sentinel back at Privet Drive.

"Ugh, where's the pyramid?" Jubilee groused. "It was right in front of the control room…"

"Which direction does the control room face?" Harry asked.

"North, why?" said Jubilee.

In answer, Harry held his wand flat in his palm and said, "_Point me_." The wand twitched, until it was pointing slightly to their left. "That's North," he told her, nodding in the indicated direction.

"Sweet," she drew the word out. "Any way we can call the others here?"

Harry thought for a moment. "I can send up sparks, but they'd be hard to see through the trees and Wolverine might spot them too. Or I could try to summon them, but that would actually drag them off their feet and straight toward us, regardless of any obstacles…"

"Oookay, guess we just keep searching," Jubilee chuckled.

"Or you could look down," said a new voice, near Harry's ankles. He jumped back, bringing his wand around, but made himself calm down. The voice had belonged to a girl he hadn't yet met, who was somehow chest-deep in the ground. She had light brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and laughing hazel eyes. Harry also saw a silver chain around her neck, but couldn't see what, if anything, was hanging from it.

"Hey Kitty," said Jubilee at once. "Where's Alison? Have we got the relic yet? What was it?" Then she added, "Good reflexes, by the way, Harry."

"The relic _was_ Wolverine," Kitty sighed, climbing carefully out of the ground. "When we opened the coffin in the pyramid, he jumped out and knocked out Dazzler. I dropped out, but I heard him say the game was changed. Now he's out hunting and we have to retrieve Dazzler. I'm guessing he left her inside. Can you fly?" she asked Harry.

"Not without a broomstick," he replied. "I'm Harry, obviously."

"Kitty Pryde," she said. "And uh…broomstick?"

"He's a magic-user," Jubilee told Kitty. "Like Amanda."

"Got it," Kitty said, then bit her lip.

"I can wake Dazzler up if we get to her," Harry offered. "Or carry her, if she won't wake." He twitched his wand to make his point, and Kitty nodded.

"Cool," said Jubilee. "So, we get back in, I hold off Logan, Harry gets Alison, Kitty snags me, and we bail."

"Where do we have to go?" Harry asked, as the other two made to leave.

"Nnnno idea!" Jubilee answered cheerfully. "Hopefully just getting out the pyramid will be enough for Logan to call it, but if not, we'll have to figure something else out." With that, she darted off once more, with Kitty on her tail, leaving Harry to catch up once again.

The short journey to the pyramid was uneventful, but reminded Harry unpleasantly of the Third Task. The jungle was somehow even worse—the green pressed in on all sides and made travelling in a single direction almost impossible. They constantly had to pause so that Harry could use the Four-Point Spell to correct their course. Harry had to remind himself several times that they were both indoors and underground. He wondered just how big the so-called Danger Room really was. Finally, they reached the pyramid, which reminded Harry of nothing so much as something out of one of Dudley's computer games.

"You wanna take care of scouting, Kitty?" Jubilee whispered. The brunette nodded, and sank into the Earth once more. Jubilee glanced at Harry, and pressed a finger to her lips. She shifted closer so they could talk, but kept her head turned toward the entrance of the pyramid. "Technically it doesn't matter if we whisper, since Wolverine will hear us anyway, but you're supposed to train like it's reality." Harry nodded and turned halfway to keep watch over the other side, though he jumped a little when Jubilee pressed her back to his. "This is proper form," she explained. "I've completely got your six, and you've got mine, see?"

Harry nodded again, but realized she likely couldn't see him and said, "Yeah. How long will Kitty need?"

"Depends on whether Logan's inside or not," Jubilee said easily. "If we don't hear back in five, we'll assume she's captured and go in after her."

Harry opened his mouth to agree, but froze. He thought he saw a bush shiver some way along the edge of the clearing where the pyramid stood. "Would Wolverine shake a bush?" he whispered to Jubilee.

"Only on purpose," she said. "If you saw it, we should attack. You need me to do it?"

"No," he replied, already taking aim at where he had seen movement. "_Stupefy_!" A jet of red light shot from Harry's wand and passed right through the bush that had moved. Harry quickly followed up with several more Stunning Spells in the direction the shimmer had been moving, in case the first had missed. "What are the odds that got him?" he asked.

"Almost zero," she said, just as bubbly as ever. "But like I said, you treat training as if it were real. Attacking there would be the right thing to do in a reasonable situation; it's just that fighting Logan is never reasonable."

"He's a good fighter?" Harry inferred.

"He'd say he's the best," Jubilee replied. "He may be right. Still, the rest of us have to learn somewhere."

Harry sighed, and kept an eye out for any other errant movements in the trees, but saw nothing. He was about to say something else when he felt Jubilee tense, but she relaxed instantly and hissed, "Kitty's back."

Kitty had not emerged from the ground, instead phasing back through the wall of the pyramid with Dazzler over her shoulder. Harry and Jubilee moved to meet her.

"Awesome," said Jubilee. "Now, we should get into the woods before Logan finds us—"

"Too late, Jubes," growled a voice from the treeline beside them. All of them spun around, and Wolverine dropped from the canopy right in front of them.

Harry and Jubilee closed ranks in front of Kitty, who hastily set Dazzler down a short distance away, as carefully as she could. Wolverine advanced slowly, tilting his head to avoid Harry's Stunning Spell.

"I don't think so," he smirked. "Caught one o' those earlier. They sting."

Before Harry could wonder why the stunner hadn't rendered Wolverine unconscious, the small man had charged. Jubilee raised both hands, fingers splayed, and emitted what looked like globules of light, which detonated against Wolverine's body, staggering him slightly. Kitty sank into the ground, and Harry took aim again.

"_Caespito_!" he cried. There was a bang, and Wolverine suddenly tumbled to the floor. "_Incarcerous_!" Thick ropes flew from his wand tip and bound Wolverine head to foot.

"That won't keep him long," Jubilee warned him, but Harry just smirked. Seconds later, Kitty's hands emerged from the ground and seized Wolverine's ankles, dragging him down until he was buried to his neck. A moment later, she rose from the earth herself, smirking. She stuck her tongue out at Wolverine, then skipped back to Harry and Jubilee.

Harry, meanwhile, was racking his brains for the wand movement he had seen his Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Lupin use the year before. It had been a sort of flick…

"_Mobilicorpus_," he said carefully. He had only used the variation for plants before, and was pleased when Dazzler's limp form rose off the ground to float gently in midair beside them. "Now, let's get out of here."

"Don' bother," Wolverine grunted. "By the time I get outta this, you could be anywhere you needta be. End simulation." Immediately at his last words, the trees, dirt, and pyramid faded, leaving them standing in a vast, empty, white-tiled room. Beneath Wolverine, four tiles were lowered several feet.

As they watched, the tiles rose back up to sit flush with the rest of the floor. With a distinctive _snikt_, three claws stabbed out of the ropes from about where each of Wolverine's hands were. A moment later, the ropes all snapped and fell, vanishing into smoke as they hit the floor.

"Good combo, new guy, Kittycat," he added, nodding to Harry and Kitty. "Jubes, how many times I gotta tell ya ta _hit me while I'm down_ Ya don' see Belle hesitate, do ya?"

"I don't have super-strength, Logan," Jubilee said patiently. It sounded like an old argument.

"Still not an excuse," Wolverine snapped. "They're down like that, you can blind 'em."

Jubilee just rolled her eyes. "Not everyone can regrow their eyes." Without waiting for another answer, she turned and walked back toward the control room, visible once more in what Harry thought was the direction they'd come. Harry and Kitty followed, with Wolverine grumblingly bringing up the rear. Kitty, on Harry's left, grinned at him and mouthed _Nice combo_. She held out a hand, and Harry high-fived her. Evidently praise from Wolverine was rare. Harry heard Wolverine snort, but Kitty's grin only grew, prompting Harry to grin back.

* * *

They exited the Danger Room by a small lift that brought them back into the control room, where Professor Xavier, Beast, and Cyclops were waiting. At the sight of the latter, Kitty and Jubilee drew themselves up as if standing at attention, but Wolverine simply grunted, "S'with the crowd, Chuck?"

"We were most interested in Harry's capabilities, Logan," Xavier answered easily. "What was that red bolt?" he asked Harry.

"A Stunning Spell, sir," Harry answered. "It's supposed to freeze or knock the target unconscious. I guess I underpowered it…" He didn't actually think so, but had no other explanation for why Wolverine wouldn't have been properly Stunned.

"Nah, it hurt plenty," Wolverine growled. "I'm just not that easy to drop. Good practice, Wiz." He clapped Harry on the back, then left. Both Kitty and Jubilee followed him, waving back to Harry.

Harry frowned at Wolverine's back. "It's not supposed to work like that," he mumbled. "The only things that I've seen shake off a stunner like that are huge magical creatures like dragons or acromantulas. Giant spiders," he clarified, at the general puzzled silence.

"Well, I must say, magic seems to be extremely flexible," Beast put in. "I would very much like to borrow young Harry for a discussion of magic sometime, if he would be willing to oblige me."

Harry shrugged. "I'm not an expert," he admitted. "You'd have better luck with my friend Hermione."

"_Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod_," Beast recited. "The Bard, naturally. I hope to meet this Hermione someday soon. If you will follow me, Harry, we can see to Miss Blaire." He smiled and led the way to a door opposite his lab, which turned out to be an infirmary. He helped guide Dazzler onto a bed as Harry cancelled his locomotion charm, and began inspecting her. After a moment, he pronounced, "No fracture or concussion, I am happy to say; she is merely unconscious. As soon as she wakes, she is ready to go. Though, of course, that may yet be a few…"

He trailed off as Harry pointed his wand at Dazzler. "_Rennervate_," he said sharply.

There was a flash of brilliantly red light, and Dazzler stirred at once. She cracked her eyes, winced at the fluorescent lights, and looked around. "Man, did I miss the whole training?" she grumbled. "Wolverine's gonna have my ass for that…"

"Fascinating," Beast said, having pulled out a palmtop computer. He poked eagerly at the buttons. "'Rennervate', you said? From Latin, of course; 'to energise'. Excellent, excellent… I shall have to stop putting off my study of magic. Perhaps Miss Sefton can provide me with a primer…" He shook his head, evidently to clear the errant thoughts, returned the computer to his pocket, and asked, "How do you feel, Miss Blaire?"

"Like Wolverine got the drop on me," she groaned. "How long was I out?"

"Less than twenty minutes," Beast assured her. "Mister Potter was able to awaken you safely without having to wait hours."

The girl gave Harry a small but dazzling smile. "Awesome, I haven't lost a day of practice." She got to her feet gingerly, as though expecting a dizzy spell, but straightened almost immediately. "That's awesome," she repeated. "Thanks Doc."

"Well, Mister Potter, I daresay that wraps things up here," said Beast. He glanced up and down the hallway, and Harry imitated him, noticing as he did that Professor Xavier was nowhere to be found. "Perhaps you may wish to explore the mansion some more, while we wait to hear back from Lord Braddock?" Beast escorted Harry back to the lift he had taken with Jean earlier. "Just be certain to push the bookshelf back into place when you leave at the top," he advised. Harry nodded. "Until next time, then," Beast added, as the doors slid closed before his smiling blue face.

* * *

Sirius was jerked from his second straight day of brooding in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place by the sound of the doorbell echoing through the house. There was nobody else home except for the kids cleaning out some upstairs bedrooms, and Dumbledore and Mad-Eye comparing notes on the search for Harry down in the basement kitchen, but having confirmed that there was no news, and still forbidden from leaving the house to help search himself, Sirius had taken to sulking up on the first floor.

Hearing the shrieks of his mother's roused portrait, Sirius heaved himself up and made his way downstairs. He stunned all the portraits as he passed, adding some extra twitches of his wand to shut the curtains over his mothers, and casting a Silencing Charm over them, before he opened the door.

"I keep telling you all not to ring the doorbell; it wakes up all the—" Sirius began, but then he froze. On the threshold was a tall, blond young man who looked about Harry's age, with his hands in the pocket of his long, brown muggle coat, and a patch over his left eye. He smiled gently when the door opened. "Who the ruddy hell are you?" Sirius demanded. "How did you find this house? Is that Polyjuice?"

Before the stranger could reply, Dumbledore's voice came from behind Sirius, down the hall from the kitchen. "No, Sirius, that is Lord Brian Braddock. Milord, this is…quite an unexpected surprise."

The stranger spoke calmly. "Not the first surprise I've had today, Mister Dumbledore, and not likely to be the last you will. If I may come in? I have some information about one of your students, which I doubt you wish bandied about the streets."

"Sorry, who is this? How are you here? How in the name of Merlin's—" Sirius interrupted, still flabbergasted that someone this young—someone he had never met—could possibly be in on the Fidelius-protected Secret of Grimmauld Place's location.

The stranger smiled his gentle smile, which made him seem far older and wiser than his still slightly-round face indicated. "Muggle land records, Mister Black. You will be pleased to know that this estate is still legally yours, so far as the Queen's government is concerned. After that, it was a simple matter of discovering the hidden door; the answer to which turned out to be this." He withdrew a hand from his pocket, and pulled up a golden chain around his neck to reveal a large Ruby set in a golden amulet. "Merlyn's Amulet of Right dispels illusions. I presume this was the Fidelius charm?" He added to Dumbledore, who nodded. "Well, you are well-hidden indeed. You needn't worry about others finding you; this is the only artefact of its type that I am aware of."

As the door closed behind him, Sirius grabbed the boy's arm. "You have news of Harry?" he asked, roughly. "He's okay?"

"Yes, Mister Black; I spoke to Harry and saw him well and safe not two hours ago. He is quite well—more than well, in fact, given the situation. I ran across a some indication that your Ministry is seeking Harry for a hearing, yes? Well, given where he presently is, you will be pleased to hear about an interesting legal precedent…"

Braddock kept talking, primarily to Dumbledore, as he followed the Headmaster down to the kitchen, but Sirius had slumped bonelessly against the front door the moment he heard that Harry was all right. He was all right. Pulling himself together, Sirius followed the others downstairs to hear more. Perhaps, with this news, Dumbledore would allow Sirius to go to him.

* * *

**A/N**: Huh. Sorry I let this one sit for so long. I honestly forgot how much fun this world was. Not that this chapter wanted to be written—it did NOT. It took for**ever** to come up with what was going to happen, and even if you're generally a seat-of-your-pants writer (which I am), you do need _some_ idea of where you're going or you'll never get anywhere. I don't really like this chapter, because it feels kinda all-over-the-place to me, but I'll leave it up to you guys to judge.

So. Harry's had a bit of an infodump about where he is and what's up (which hopefully wasn't too boring for the readers), and there's now a third established cute single girl for Harry "Oblivious" Potter to attempt to figure out. This still isn't a romance story, and obviously there's still no pairing decided.

For the record, not all of the students at Xavier's Academy are X-Men or even trainees. The only decided X-Men (and teachers) are Xavier himself, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Beast, Gambit, Rogue, and Storm; and the only actual cadets-in-training established so far are Nightcrawler, Iceman, Dazzler, Jubilee, and Shadowcat (the latter three under Wolverine's direct sponsorship). Everyone else is just a student, doing regular mutant schooling, rather like how not all Hogwarts students decided to join the D.A. in canon.

I've also thrown up a poll on my profile on FFN—would you guys like a forum to talk with/about me and my stories? I can't really imagine anyone does, but apparently that's a capability FFN has (I'm new to this whole fanfic thing, remember).

Finally, consider this an edit as of 16 March 2015: I have tweaked the beginning of Chapter 1—not in any significant way, but in response to a claim of potential copyright infringement. (For the record it was _not_ copyright infringement. The commenter who "warned" me thus is apparently completely unaware of Fair Use law, and I have no interest in becoming a legal educator, **but** they _are_ correct that the section of text they cited did violate at least FFN's Terms of Use, so it has been altered.) Nothing has changed in terms of the plot though, so don't feel like you have to look back.


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